Not sure where this could sit to be honest, but I recently ordered a scan from the BnF of one of three volumes of letters/press clippings/records/drawings put together to commemorate the life and music of French composer-critic Léon Kreutzer, who still fascinates me.

Among the pages of the book are letters – from Liszt, Gounod, Meyerbeer, Adolphe Sax, and others – and a few beautiful lithographs(?) and drawings (one of the young composer by his eventual wife, Clémence Kautz, a one-time student of Liszt). Unfortunately several of these pictures seem to be missing from the volume.

To have such a record of a relatively elusive, creative figure is great and I hope some of you who have an interest in historical letters and biographies might find some of it interesting. And if there are any among you who are good at deciphering handwriting, I'd love to learn what some of the less-legible letters are telling us!

Oh, I had missed that interesting link provided by 4candles. All that stuff gathered around the memory of Leon Kreutzer and his family is quite moving. Lots of newspaper clips. Among the letters, a few by well-known musicians such as Marmontel, Halévy, Adople Sax, Pauline Viardot, Meyerbeer, Liszt, Dancla, Stephen Heller, or, surprisingly, Wagner (page 114) :

(Mr and Mrs Richard Wagner have the honor to inform Mr Léon Kreutzer that being forced to leave for Brussels, they will not receive tomorrow Wednesday or the following Wednesday, but they hope that Mr Léon Kreutzer will make them the pleasure of coming to spend the evening at home on Wednesday 11 April.)

Fascinating documents. I've always had the idle thought that when Charles Alkan "showed" his orchestral Symphony in B minor to Kreutzer in 1846, the composer actually parted company with the score and Kreutzer never gave it back. That does happen from time to time. I couldn't trace any mention of it in the documents, which is a shame.